Beyond Participation: Explaining Productivity and Income Outcomes in Nigeria's Rice Value Chain Development Programme

For smallholder rice farmers, higher farm productivity does not necessarily translate into higher household income. This paper examines this gap using evidence from the IFAD-supported Value Chain Development Programme (VCDP) among rice farmers in Niger, Taraba, and Benue States, Nigeria. Primary survey data from 282 farmers are combined with five key-informant interviews and four focus group discussions. Logistic regression is used to examine programme participation, OLS models estimate the conditional associations of programme participation and training with post-programme rice productivity, and Firth logistic models examine reported household-income improvement. Programme participation is positively associated with post-programme rice productivity, corresponding to approximately 11.7% higher predicted yield, although the association is only marginally significant. Training has a larger and statistically significant association with productivity, corresponding to approximately 35.8% higher predicted yield among trained farmers. Neither programme participation nor training is significantly associated with reported household-income improvement, and their interaction is also insignificant. The financial-constraint index is negatively associated with participation, productivity, and income improvement. The findings indicate that programme participation alone does not capture the productive differences associated with value-chain support. Training is more closely associated with productivity, while financial and production constraints remain associated with weaker outcomes. The findings also show that farm-level productivity gains cannot be assumed to translate into equivalent household-income gains.